That’s how serious the culinary students at Passaic County Technical Institute took their recent Iron Chef comeptition.

For the two teams of seniors, it would be their capstone competition after four years of training at this nationally recognized high school culinary program.

Team captains Arni Cabatingan and Estuardo Rojas spent more than a month researching their five-course menus—an appetizer, soup, salad, main dish and dessert.

On the contest day the students were in the kitchen hours ahead of time preparing for the lunchtime judging panel. I was invited to judge alongside a dozen or so faculty members.

Estuardo Rojas' latin-inspired sushi appetizer.

In five-minute intervals, the student waiters brought out their five courses into the school’s banquet room. For appetizers, both teams prepared some variation of sushi. Like being in the heat of a real restuarnt their instructor Peter Santero, shouted out “five minutes to the next course.”

It was a lot of food, so as tasters we were reminded to take only a few bites of each dish. To not let anything go to waste, the students happily packed up our leftovers.

Estuardo showed a lot of flair with flavor. He paired cilantro and cream cheese in his smoked salmon roll, and the dish was plated beautifully. He continued to take risks in his menu—including with his roasted corn and coconut milk soup—which everyone loved.

But dish after dish, Arni, showed the most attention to detail and authenticity in her Asian-themed menu. The bonito-broth of her udon noodle dish was spot-on, something that many Japanese restaurants in the area can’t even get right.

The eible bowls in Arni's salad course.

For her salad course, she served each marinated salad in a homemade, edible bowl—one was made of ramen noodles.

Her dessert was impressive. Mango and ube sorbet, served with handmade fortune cookies, and cinnamon doughnuts packed in Chinese takeout containers, just in case we wanted a snack for later.

Arni's dessert include take-home doughnuts.

Not surprisingly, the judges chose Arni as the winner. A star student, she’ll be studying at the Culinary Institute of America in New York next fall. Estuardo, who shows a great sophistication in his flavoring, will be attending Johnson and Wales in Rhode Island.

Look out for these Passaic County chefs in the future.

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About the bloggers

Elisa Ung has been the restaurant reviewer and dining columnist for The Record since 2007. She's a native of Southern California and a graduate of the University of Southern California, and she spent eight years writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer.View all of her posts